Landman, Taylor Sheridan’s gritty oil epic that gripped 15 million premiere viewers in 2024 with its raw take on West Texas’s billion-dollar brawls, thunders back for Season 2 on November 16, 2025, on Paramount+, doubling the drama with Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris and the Norris clan facing a “father firestorm” as Sam Elliott joins as Tommy’s estranged dad, a casting coup that’s injecting humor, heart, and high-stakes tension into the saga of politics, personal struggles, and powerful connections. Co-created by Sheridan and Christian Wallace, the 10-episode arc—filmed in Texas’s Permian Basin from April to August 2025—stars Thornton, 70, as the fixer-in-chief, now grappling with family fractures as Elliott’s T.L. Norris, a “rugged relic” of the oil boom, stirs the pot with witty barbs and buried grudges.
The season’s seismic surge? Spellbinding: Episode 1’s “Father’s Fault Line” catapults Tommy into the fray, T.L.’s sudden return from a 30-year exile etched with doubt, unspooling a conspiracy where boardrooms conceal crimes and brothers harbor grudges. Thornton’s Tommy? A “masterclass in mettle,” his wry resolve warping to weary watchfulness, unraveling a ripple of regrets where a “legacy land deal” surfaces as sabotage. Elliott’s T.L.? A “veteran of venom,” his measured machismo cracking under the creep of compulsion, his “humor” a hook for the hurt. Co-stars carve the chaos: Demi Moore as Cami Miller with a sting, Ali Larter as Angela Norris with a grudge, and Jacob Lofland as Cooper with secrets. Sheridan’s script quivers with quips—”Oil doesn’t run out; old men do”—but the “brutal” brutality bites: a botched boom burial buries a body, a VVIP viper’s venom turns ally to assassin.
The “double the energy”? Explosive: Sheridan’s adaptation amps the “pacy” probe with “spooky” soundscapes and “authentic” accents, the Permian Basin’s “eerie charm” a canvas for “grim themes.” Variety‘s Caroline Framke raves “pacy, poignant drama” with Thornton’s “reliably rugged” grit; The Hollywood Reporter‘s Daniel Fienberg hails Elliott’s “Icily Glamorous” iciness and the “haunting” score. IndieWire‘s Kate Erbland praises the “confidence, style, authenticity.” Skeptics? “Mired in machismo,” but the 1-in-2 deal-to-drama ratio hooks, BARB metrics outgunning The Jetty.
This isn’t oil opus; it’s an odyssey of oil and origin, S2’s firestorm a flare for the fractured where legacies lacerate and loves linger. Tommy’s turmoil? Tormenting. T.L.’s tease? Teasing. November 16? Not a drop—a deluge. Binge it; the deals disturb, the dramas devastate. Thornton’s tenacity? Tenacious. The obsession? Overnight, inescapable.
